How Using an iPhone X Ended Up Illegal for San Francisco Staffers

The city of San Francisco was one of the first to push for new regulations on facial recognition, and back in May, local authorities decided to fully ban the use of such systems by city agencies.

In other words, San Francisco staffers were no longer allowed to use facial recognition systems, no matter if these involve surveillance systems or… modern iPhones equipped with Face ID.

However, the ban on Face ID didn’t only target this feature itself, but the iPhone as a whole, according to Lee Hepner, an aide to supervisor Aaron Peskin, local Board of Supervisors member and involved in the creation of the new regulations. Hepner told Wired that city employees were banned from using an iPhone equipped with Face ID even if this facial recognition system was disabled.

iPhone X and newer all come with the Face ID facial recognition system.

Facial recognition adopted en-masse

Earlier this week, however, the city introduced a series of amendments that would technically allow using products with facial recognition systems if they come with other features that are absolutely necessary. This involves using iPhones as well, but according to the cited source, Face ID is still banned for city staffers, which means that they must stick with a passcode even if they have an iPhone X or newer model.

Despite being the first, San Francisco wasn’t the only one trying to regulate facial recognition. Oakland and Somerville, Massachusetts, as well as Brookline, Massachusetts also passed bans on such technology and are now preparing exemptions for mobile devices, as they discovered that facial recognition is becoming a more widely adopted feature beyond surveillance systems.

As far as the future of facial recognition iPhones is concerned, Apple is fully committed to sticking with and improving this feature on the next-generation models. People familiar with Apple’s plans said Touch ID fingerprint scanners could also return to the iPhone in the coming years, but despite this, facial recognition systems are here to stay.

At the same time, other phone makers, including Huawei, Google, invest aggressively in advanced facial recognition for their phones, so clear regulations in this regard aren’t needed only in San Francisco, but also elsewhere.